Thursday, 18 June 2015

I’m Committed To Creating A Better Writers’ Union, Says Abdullahi

Denja Abdullahi
is a culture worker and writer, who has held many executive positions in
Nigeria’s writers’ body, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) in almost a
decade. Currently the Vice President of the association, Abdullahi is eyeing
the first position of the union and asserts, “To me, arts and literary
administration is not a hobby or sidekick; it is a career, which must be
managed with all indices of professionalism”. In this interview, he spoke to
Anote AJELUOROU about his ambition and how he intends to reposition ANA for
competitiveness and as a world-class organisation. Excerpts:

What are your plans for repositioning ANA?

I intend to galvanize the talents, expertise
and different pockets of competence the association is blessed with in its
membership to reposition it. In my long period of service to the association, I
have discovered that you can only achieve anything significant, in the midst of
perennial paucity of funds, by leveraging and harnessing the potentials in
members and other lovers of literature for identified aims and objectives. I
will also create working synergy between ANA and other associations and bodies
in the creative sector to fight for common goals that will improve the lot of
the sector such as ensuring the establishment of the National Endowment Funds
for the Arts and the like. I will internationalize the operations of the associations
and stake its claim in the scheme of governance in Nigeria. My manifesto is
long on what I will do to reposition ANA if elected but these are just a few of
them and they are all translated into pockets of programmes, projects and
activities.

ANA has since lost its voice in the national space.
Will you help reclaim it under your watch?

I do not think it is completely right to say that ANA
has lost its voice in the national space. The association has a dynamics that
is different from some other associations that jump all the time into public
discourse. The association has to be true to its founding ideals, spirit and
inherent character. Writers by nature must exhibit some objective distance from
what is happening around them so that they can review same and make appropriate
interventions when necessary. The association is essentially a craft union,
established to promote the interests of its members while participating in the
building and maintenance of an egalitarian society. Much of these tasks are
done without much media noise and that is why it can easily be assumed that the
association is lost in the public space.

Also, different times call for different
approaches in the way the public space should be engaged. During the military
era, you will recall that the association played an activist part along with
other groups till democracy was won. During the various times our democracy was
to be derailed, particularly in the period of the third term debacle, I
remember signing a public document as General Secretary, on behalf of the association,
rejecting that anomaly. We have at various points added our voices to the call
for rectitude, propriety, constitutionality and common sense in the governance
of our land. I will maintain all these under my watch and even improve on
making the association more relevant to the society and in public discourse. I
will give a strong voice to the association without making that voice sound
pedestrian.

ANA Prizes don’t seem attractive anymore with The Nigeria
Prize (USD$100,000) for Literature sponsored by Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas
Ltd and Etisalat Prize for (African) Literature (15,000) that give out c ash
prizes in U.S. dollars and pound British sterling. Will you overhaul ANA prizes
for more competitiveness?

What
many people do not know is that ANA prizes, right from inception, have a developmental
philosophy governing them. ANA prizes were instituted originally to announce
new writers and new voices into the public space; it is to sort of groom
talents for later literary greatness. If you study and review the history of
the prizes you will see that many who won the prizes years back later went on
to win other glamorous literary prizes at home and abroad, sometimes with the
same books or with other books. ANA prizes were designed to build confidence in
writers and boost their literary careers.

However, I agree that the ANA prizes have lost their shine, first with
their abandonment by those who endowed them such as Cadbury’s, Chevron, NDDC,
Literamed, Spectrum, etc, due to a myriad of economic reasons, and second, with
the coming of mega prizes such as The Nigeria Prize for Literature, Caine Prize
and Etisalat Prize for Literature. I was at the head of a team instituted by
the present ANA National Executive to review the prizes and suggest possible
ways of overhauling them. The team recommended the streamlining of the prizes,
knocking off those that have outlived their usefulness and those whose
administration have become difficult due to sponsors’ disinterest and fatigue.
These recommendations were upheld and implemented and we now have fewer prizes
we are managing very well. I intend, under my watch, to review further the administration of ANA literary prizes with a view
to beefing up their profiles as well as seek the establishment of new prizes
that will be developmental and sustainable. We must attract back to the prizes
big sponsors and shore them up to achieve their purposes for the winners and
the sponsors. ANA as a body has the expertise for literary prize administration
in Nigeria more than any other group having been in the business for over three
decades.

ANA land in Abuja seems in limbo after a lengthy litigation. How do
you plan to convert the land into a proper asset so as to reduce dependence of
ANA conventions on government patronage?

ANA is gradually waking up from its slumber.
We have won the court case on the land since 2012 and paid the necessary
damages due to a developer whose intent was to hold us hostage to his lack of
capacity. We have a new agency on the land that has helped us fight off vicious
trespassers, encroachers and land grabbers. Preliminary infrastructure is being
laid on the land on a very challenging topography. Under my watch, I will
ensure there will be no deviation from the original plan for the land to be a
writers’ resort with layers of facilities that will house important edifices
and generate income for the association. I will also ensure a business model is
adopted for the development of the land and the running of its facilities so
that the association will derive from it, at least 50% of its running cost,
while the remaining 50% is sourced from membership dues and sponsors for
necessary programmes and projects.

But beyond the rituals of conventions, how do you propose ANA should engage
writers more in your tenure?

I intend
to unbundle the annual international convention of the association and
repackage it to make it more of a writers’ affair where books, authors and
creativity will be fully celebrated. We will pull out some activities within
the annual convention to stand on their own as full-fledged events within the
year. That will increase our visibility all year round. We will also intensify
efforts towards holding developmental literary workshops and schools outreach
programmes, including tertiary institutions, celebrating landmark literary events
and authors with colloquia, international literary exchange programmes,
supporting residencies and generally raising the profile of literary
activities.